The kingmakers of Makerfield: English town braces for crucial by-election

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Ashton-in-Makerfield, United Kingdom – In a scenario few could have predicted, voters in a northern English market town near Manchester could determine the United Kingdom’s future political leadership.

The surprise resignation of the Labour Party’s Ashton-in-Makerfield MP Josh Simons in late February left the supposedly safe seat open, paving the way for the popular mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, to step in.

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If he wins the seat in a crucial by-election set for June 18, he could ultimately topple embattled Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Standing in his way are the voters, many of whom Burnham has yet to convince of his credentials for the job, and the right-wing insurgent Reform UK party, which has promised to “throw everything” at the election in a bid to block Burnham’s path to the UK Parliament.

Local Peter Thompson told Al Jazeera that the stakes feel high in his town. The voters of Makerfield, he acknowledged, were the country’s kingmakers or, ominously given Burnham’s popular nickname of “King of the North”, “the king destroyers”.

The constituency is difficult to categorise, political scientists said.

It neither fits the stereotype of the declining industrial towns of northern England nor carries much of the metropolitan optimism typified in the soaring glass tower blocks of the nearby Manchester city centre. Instead, it is best understood as “a place in-between”, political science Professor Rob Ford wrote in his blog last week, describing an “archipelago of separate and often poorly connected towns” that feel only partly like Manchester or nearby Wigan; partly like nearby Merseyside, including Liverpool; and partly like the nearby county of Lancashire.

Politically, too, it is hard to pin down.

Makerfield has been a safe Labour seat since its creation in 1983, but Starmer’s party lost all eight of its local council seats there to Reform in May during local elections.

Few observers have been brave enough to call the current contest.

However, while political scientists are puzzled, 61-year-old resident Tracy Walker, who works in a charity shop, is resolute.

“I want Andy Burnham. … I think we should give him a go. He’s from the north,” she said, contrasting Burnham with the long line of premiers from the country’s south.

“I think they need to give him a break,” she added, referring to a previous move by Labour’s ruling National Executive Council to block the Manchester mayor from standing in a nearby by-election in February.

Burnham has earned praise as Manchester’s mayor, winning re-election three times.

His popularity sits in contrast to that of the Labour Party.

Little of the “change” that Starmer’s campaign promised in the 2024 general election appears to have arrived in places like Makerfield, where household incomes are lower than average.

“I’m 78, and all my voting life, there’s only been two parties running this country, Labour and Conservative,” Peter Thompson said from behind the counter of his vinyl record store. He plans to vote for Reform. “Just look around now at what the state of the country’s in. It needs a change.”

He accused the “people in power” of complacency, adding, “All the people in my age group who I drink with feel the same. We want a change. It’s not desperate [support for] Reform. … It’s against the establishment. The establishment is there for their own means. I’ve no doubt that if Reform gets in, they may be no different. But it might change the outlook for people who’ve been kicked out of power, give them a shock.”

The change that didn’t happen

Disillusionment such as Peter’s is driven by the impact of the Conservative Party’s austerity programme of the 2010s, said Malcolm, another local who is an activist. Al Jazeera interviewed him as he handed out leaflets against Reform in the town centre.

“Austerity has really hammered Ashton, and there’s a lot more inequality. People are struggling more,” said Macolm, who asked that his surname not be used.

“People are angry, and they’re diverting it towards migrants. People are angry about austerity and everything else, and what Reform are cleverly doing is saying it’s migrants’ fault. It’s a very easy thing to look at.”

Neither Burnham nor the Reform candidate, Robert Kenyon, enjoy a clear majority, polls suggested.

While Reform looks safe from a challenge from the Conservative Party, still languishing after 14 years in power, the newly established far-right Restore Party could split Reform’s vote, not least after it received the endorsement of United States-based tech billionaire Elon Musk over the weekend.

“Restore are on around 7 percent in Ashton, but that’s the 7 percent Reform really need,” John Curtice, Britain’s most famous polling guru, told Al Jazeera.

He explained that when the combined polling of all progressive, left-leaning parties in the constituency was compared with an equally broad grouping of right-leaning parties, the two blocs were broadly level.

The one exception, he noted, was Burnham.

“Burnham is very popular among the 2024 voters,” he said, referring to those who contributed to Labour’s overwhelming majority two years ago. “If you take a poll of that group with and without Burnham’s name on it, the difference is around 9 percent, which might just prove enough to win Ashton,” he added, while cautioning that the election is still some way off.

For 84-year-old Edna Conliff, the old adage of all politics being local remains as true as ever.

“He’s local, very local,” she said while waiting for her bus home, pointing to where Burnham’s house lay on the outskirts of the constituency, “And he’s done such a lot for Manchester while he’s been there.”

In the upcoming election, Edna has no doubt that her town is essentially voting for the next UK prime minister. It would mean a lot to have a prime minister from Makerfield, she said.

“It might help us. You never know, do you?”